Craig Jones believes the debate over equal pay in professional Jiu-Jitsu should be settled by the numbers.
Speaking about the analytics from CJI2, Jones argued that female athletes have already proven they can attract just as much attention as men, pointing to internal data from the event.
As, when asked why he supports equal pay despite critics claiming athletes should be compensated based solely on viewership, Jones highlighted one name in particular –Helena Crevar:
Well, I mean, we ran the analytics for the previous year and Helena Crevar, and I don’t want to say it’s for nefarious reasons but her SEO destroys people like Nicky Rod and many people.
For Jones, those numbers speak for themselves:
So in terms of the draw, Helena Crevar would be one of the biggest draws in the sport.
He also pushed back against the common criticism that women’s Jiu-Jitsu is inherently less entertaining than men’s:
In my opinion, objectively, all the dudes out there that go women’s Jiu-Jitsu is boring. I go, no, Jiu-Jitsu is boring.
Jones argued that the issue isn’t gender but rather the nature of the sport itself:
It’s boring across the board. Who gives a f**k if it’s a woman or a man?
Watch the entire clip of the interview on the following link.